Morning Discussion

Over the past week, John Walker of Rock, Paper, Shotgun has been brilliantly dissecting a daft Fox News report heavily implying that Bulletstorm would cause actual, real-world rapes, corrupt the young and all that jazz.

Digging around, Walker discovered that one of the 'experts' quoted was a victim of selective quoting, while another who had offered some fascinating thoughts on ratings and regulation wasn't used in the story at all.

As for the source of the rape claims, Dr Carole Lieberman, she initially couldn't offer the sources of her beliefs, not having them on hand because "When the Columbine murders took place, there were national polls where people voted on what they believed caused the two young men to kill. Media violence ranked high on the list, so I, obviously mistakenly, assumed that people still knew about the studies showing this connection--and believed them to have proven the link." When she did round her sources up, Walker dutifully examined them to pull apart her argument.

It's top-notch work. Such tabloid claims about video games are rarely handled so well by the video games media. Do read.